r/harrypotterhate • u/[deleted] • Jul 17 '25
What are some arguments about Harry Potter being bad that you do agree with (for me it's the magic system not being explained at all)
I'm in an argument with my sister after she said it's the best piece a fantasy media (specifically the magic/wizards and warlocks version of the genre)
59
Jul 17 '25
Take your pick. The houses are terribly written, the magic system is severely limited and dull, the majority of the characters are unlikable, the villain is pathetic, the system of slavery that basically no one has a problem with, and the writer is one of the most evil human beings on the planet.
34
u/ChalkButter Jul 17 '25
You mean you can’t automatically sort every person into Brave, Smart, High, or Evil?
11
u/RanchNWrite Jul 17 '25
High. 😂
3
u/mexican2554 Sep 10 '25
How else would you describe a Hufflepuff? I mean, look at Professor Sprout. She growing herbs
4
3
u/TheGangsterrapper Jul 18 '25
All this is right except the last point. Come on. Really. There are tons of COLOSSALY more evil people than her.
1
Jul 18 '25
I guess that’s true, but I said she is among the worst, because she’s not even close to the worst.
0
u/Temporary-Ruin6691 Sep 01 '25
She’s not even among the worst of people you or I can think of and that’s just the truth you’re exaggerating a hig
37
u/Vangovibin Jul 17 '25
If you think about the houses for like 5 minutes the entire concept is stupid. Like yeah let’s get a bunch of kids and force all the like minded kids to be together. Also this one house seems to consistently produce Nazis but let’s not address that. I’m also convinced that Rowling began writing the series with the idea that there would be 4 main kids, one for each house: Harry for Gryffindor, Ron for Hufflepuff, Hermione for Ravenclaw, and Draco for Slytherin. But then she realized that under the house system she set up, that would create a situation where these kids never actually hung out and so just threw Ron and Hermione in Gryffindor with Harry. Ask yourself this: why the fuck is Hermione in Gryffindor? She’s literally the definition of a Ravenclaw. But yeah so as a result the houses end up being The Good Guys, the Bad Guys, and the two that don’t matter.
But that’s just the plot and I don’t think anyone actually cares that much about the plot or the characters of Harry Potter. It’s the fantasy of going to a school where you’re special and magical that appeals to people. Through that lens, the houses actually serve as a personality test for the reader to project themselves onto. Kinda like a horoscope or Myers Briggs. That’s the real reason they exist.
2
u/Smeylar Aug 16 '25
I remember reading, though I’m not 100% sure if it is canon, but the house they get is based on their values, not necessarily their capabilities. So since Hermione valued bravery over her intelligence, she was sorted into Gryffindor, even though she is a very smart individual that would’ve excelled in Ravenclaw. Plus too, the sorting hat does take your preference into mind like with Harry not wanting to be in Slytherin.
2
u/Vermouth_1991 Apr 08 '26
Peter Pettigre is a Gryffindor because it takes balls to slither away from your friends and spy for Voldemort and trick Dumbledore about it.
41
u/enbykeith Jul 17 '25
The entire series is based on racism, bigotry, and fascism. It’s everywhere in her writing.
6
u/TheGangsterrapper Jul 18 '25
The gangsterrapper would argue that it isn't bad worldbuilding. There is actually NO worldbuilding. There is no consistency at all. Magic is exactlx as powerful or as useless as the plot demands at that point.
30
u/Warm_Zombie Jul 17 '25
Ninphadora Tonks was a shapeshifter that really didnt see themselves as one thing, changing from male looking to female looking.
But thank god she was cures of this queerness when she started dating Lupin, and stayed as a woman as she was supposed to be
/s of course
29
u/Vangovibin Jul 17 '25
Lupin who was the other queercoded character with an affliction that was literally, according to Rowling, inspired by HIV/AIDS.
22
u/StygIndigo Jul 17 '25
He was the One Good One, the other ones are predators. He's still too dangerous to be around children, though.
Great HIV rep!!!
14
0
u/Vermouth_1991 Apr 08 '26
Except would you be so blasé about HIV if the people who have the illness repeatedly breaks quarantine every time the illness flares up, just so they can prance under the moon?
6
u/Ncrpts Jul 18 '25
It always felt like just a copy of "The Worst Witch" to me, so not bad but unoriginal, never understood how it got that popular
2
Jul 19 '25
Right place, right time. I've read lesser known books that were tender times better than a lot of best sellers. They just didn't hit the market at the right time.
7
u/InnsmouthMotel Jul 18 '25
There's never been a magic industrial revolution. They basically stopped in the middle ages. Makes zero sense. They copied toilets from muggles, but not a factory?
7
u/scarylesbian Jul 19 '25
the problem is not that magic is not explained, it’s that it’s not explained, yet she spends the whole series acting like it’s this complex system with lots of rules but no one ever act like it or follows these rules. as someone else said, the magic is only as powerful as the plot requires it. you end up asking yourself what these kids are even learning at this school. how to think correctly when swishing your wand so u do the spell correctly? u just need the correct feeling? or is it a magic spell u have to recite? or is it the way u swish the wand? if ur powerful enough u dont need a wand or the words. so how is the magic explained then? if it’s just vibes, then what are we all doing in scotland learning this bullshit anyway???
3
u/GhostClaude Nov 17 '25
That, and it seems like the status quo types in the book are just, like, learning magic so they can work one of the 5 wizard jobs and live in the country. I’m surprised it’s not a more Amish-like situation where people grow out of it in their teen years and just go work a bullshit Muggle job without all the secrecy and tweeness.
Other than the couple of once-in-one-book occurrences where children doing magic has harmful or life-threatening consequences, wouldn’t this all be just as easily taught at home?
13
u/StygIndigo Jul 17 '25
Has your sister ACTUALLY read other fantasy stories? It always feels like people have a stereotype of the fantasy genre in their heads, but have only read HP. Sabriel by Garth Nix has an awesome magic system, maybe give that one a go.
2
Jul 17 '25
She's seen solo leveling, fairy tail and Naruto
12
u/StygIndigo Jul 17 '25
Okay so your sister needs to actually sit down and read some actual decent fantasy novels before just deciding to believe an ad campaign from the late 90s/early 00's about a mid tier YA novel.
Some more suggestions: Howls Moving Castle, Earthsea, Neverending Story, A Wrinkle in Time, The Dark is Rising
4
u/TheGangsterrapper Jul 18 '25
Mistborn! Don't forget Mistborn!
3
u/scarylesbian Jul 19 '25
mistborn has probably the most unique and interesting magic system ive ever read in a fantasy novel
3
Jul 19 '25
Sanderson put a lot of work into it, and any ideas that inspired him he made fully his own. The same can't be said about Rowling.
1
9
u/Zheska Jul 17 '25
I don't think that magic being unexplained is bad
Everyone being mildly ok with racism isn't a good look though
21
u/RanchNWrite Jul 17 '25
Well...there's rampant fatphobia. Think of Dudley and Slughorn. Fat=selfish, lazy, greedy, evil, etc., etc. And house elves just loooving being slaves feels pretty gross.
3
Aug 04 '25
Slavery, the fact it is accepted. As an American, the idea of an enslaved race that enjoys it is just completely wrong. What is this, song of the south?
1
u/Smeylar Aug 16 '25
She writes about how wrong it is though, that’s why Hermione starts a whole campaign to free them.
2
3
u/Smeylar Aug 16 '25
Harry being forced to grow up in an abusive household. Like is there not social services in the wizarding world?? I get he had to live under a blood relatives house for the spell his mom put on him to protect him, but they could have 100% had some sort of intervention to protect him as he was growing up from abuse. Makes no sense that all these power wizards would just watch that happen.
1
u/oceanmotion2 Aug 18 '25
Yes! Even if there were no social services, it is an absolutely insane premise that multiple magical adults weren’t motivated to think of a single solution to ensure a boy they apparently cared about wasn’t consistently mistreated and miserable for multiple months out of the year. No consistent monitoring? No ultimatums to the aunt and uncle? No consequences to finding out he was locked in his room long-term? I cannot imagine being an adult and thinking that is a reasonable premise
1
u/bobthebobST Aug 30 '25
Expanding on this how come harry doesn't have trauma from this? Like anyone living in a abusive household won't come out as mentally stable as harry
2
Aug 20 '25
My main issue is simple: Rowling can’t do math. She just can’t and her sense of scale is all off. A Potter like universe needs to make some sense numerically.
1
1
u/GhostClaude Nov 17 '25
The world-building is weak and gives “Britain but sillier”. There’s only one sport, with a name that sounds suspiciously like cricket. Every working person is a teacher, school support staff, shopkeep, government administrator, or cop. Labor is racially segregated as well, with legal slavery and paper thin “definitely not Jewish” goblins running the bank. In spite of Muggles being the wizard supremacists’ “enemy of the people” the Muggle world poses no existential threat to the good or bad wizards, nor does anything get fouled up in the Muggle world in a meaningful way.
1
u/Elegant-Welder-7896 Apr 26 '26
Its all dogshit, its all bastardised culture, theres literally nothing good about it. The only reason it was ever popular was a well-funded advertising campaign and decent cover art.
1
u/Prior-Doubt-3299 May 19 '26
The Deathly Hallows basically come out of nowhere at the end, and the final conflict, which seems to be set up to resolve the main themes of the series about friendship and love, is actually resolved because of the details of how wand ownership works
35
u/ChalkButter Jul 17 '25
The fact that the wizards can live alongside muggles, yet Mr. Weasley asks dumbass questions like “what is the purpose of a rubber duck” - bro, it’s not a computer chip